The bicycle is an extremely complex system made up of many parts, subsystems and components, and the numerous required performances can trade off between each other. When supporting a top-level team there is no room to neglect any single aspect: in one racing season, or even in one race or stage, there are several conditions and situations in which the rider who wants to win must not accept compromises. To develop a bicycle that performs the best in all racing conditions is a tough job, especially when the starting point is the v3rs, a bike which is already a proven winner in all kind of competitions: 2 tdf gc, monument classics (liegi, lombardia), classics (strade bianche and cobble-stone stages), sprint finishes, etc. The only possible way to evolve without neglecting any detail is to work directly and constantly in contact with the best and most demanding riders in the world: from the initial design inputs, to the final race validation, passing through all the development phases. The new colnago v4rs was built to do one thing: built to win.
From race-to-race approach
the new v4rs has been designed starting from the direct inputs of the professional riders of uae teams. The evolution touched all the areas of the performance:
- aerodynamics.
- Weight.
- Real dynamic stiffness.
- Sizing and geometry.
- Design robustness and maintenance.
All the new parts and components followed the same strict validation procedure:
- concept and design
- prototype phase
- internal testing and design selection
- complete system validation in racing conditions
this final step is what really makes the difference, all the sub-systems come together to deliver the final behaviour of the bicycle, and its final performance is never the sum of the performance of each component (in engineers' language, there is no superimposition of effects principle). Therefore, despite all the innovative testing methodologies and validation, the best way to check that the improvements are consistent and not simply the result of a different trade-off position, is to take the whole system to performance limits (i.E. Race conditions) and collect data and feedback.
Read more in the v4rs white paper.